Obama Lost Credibility Before We Lost Our Credit

Words are a lot like money. When misused, they lose their value.When you spend money you don’t have, you lose credibility. When you use words that don’t match your actions, you lose credibility. It’s not just America’s credit that has been downgraded, but the credibility of the federal government’s leaders—and their cheerleaders in a courtier press—has been downgraded as well. Voters give President Barack Obama poor marks—43 percent approval rating in Gallup’s most recent survey—because he says one thing and does another. The results of this two-faced presidency have been disastrous.

Standard and Poor’s downgrading the federal government’s “AAA” rating to “AA+” merely confirms what everyone already knew: the federal government has become reckless in budgetary matters. The reactions of the powerful to S&P’s acknowledgment of the obvious shows that those rash with other people’s money are also rash with their own words.

“I think S&P has shown really terrible judgment and they’ve handled themselves very poorly,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner emoted to CNBC regarding S&P’s credit-rating reassessment of the United States. “And they’ve shown a stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math. And I think they drew exactly the wrong conclusion from this budget agreement.” The hapless Treasury Secretary’s words ring more true when applied to him. After all, he foresaw “no risk” of a credit downgrade in April and penned the much-mocked “Welcome to the Recovery” New York Times op-ed one year ago, boasting that “the actions we took at its [the recession’s] height to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery.” With consumer spending down, unemployment above nine percent, and the annual economic growth rate below one percent thus far for 2011, the op-ed now reads as a weak attempt to Jedi-Mind-Trick the American people into an economic expansion. You can’t hope your way to prosperity.

The day before the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 635 points, Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that “there is no reason to take Friday’s downgrade of America seriously.” It’s such advice from the former Enron advisor that makes it so hard to take Paul Krugman seriously. “And please, let’s not have the usual declarations that both sides are at fault,” he wrote Sunday. “Our problems are almost entirely one-sided—specifically, they’re caused by the rise of an extremist right that is prepared to create repeated crises rather than give an inch on its demands.” This comes from the Princetonian pundit who would have had the government spend more—on a second, bigger stimulus and a single-payer (state-funded) health care program.

"Oh, both parties are at fault. The downgrade is the fault of Boehner and tea party republicans for not compromising. "

That bull is wearing thin. I believe that Cut, Cap and balance was a good proposal. Where was the democrat’s response? It never happened!! They sat there like QC inspectors rejecting every attempt by Boehner to appease and compromise. There an old rule in sales — Make your pitch and then sit and shut up. The first one to speak loses — Boehner should have stuck to his guns and forced Obama to come up with a counter proposal. In fact he should have demanded it. But instead he caved and the democrats made him the villain. But I alos blame other so-called conservatives that added pressure to Boehner to cave. The sort of people you would not have expected to aid and abet the Blamer-in-chief:

While I feel Boehner come out as weak and probably well deserved, let's not be hypocritical and let him carry the blame alone. The names above and many other so-called conservatives are to blame for what lead to the downgrade. As conservatives we supposed to help each other not eat our own. I am very disappointed in many of these conservatives and while I am not going to throw the baby out with the bath water. I have a changed my perspective on the conservative landscape. I like to see more real conservatives entering the republican establishment, and replacing RINO's , appeasers and plain cowards. Actions speak louder than words. So let’s see some!

TexExpatriate

You blame talk-show people who had nothing to do with the vote, but the one man who engineered the compromise and signed it was Boehner. He's a must-go and so are every Republican office holder who voted for that bill.

StephenD

"People who don’t take responsibility get responsibility taken away."

"To whom much is given, much is required."

The only problem with this is he is doing EXACTLY what a Socialist, anti-American, Islamist leaning Operative would do. He seems to have an agenda and is sticking to it religiously. If you were in one of the groups mentioned above you’d be praising his name I’d think.

Jim_C

And yet, very few people are praising Obama.

So what does that tell you?

StephenD

Tells me that right now much is being required of him. What does it tell you?

mrbean

It should be firmly implanted in your mind as an American, that your masters in government and those controlling government brazenly and arrogantly believe that they know better what is good for you, than you do. That is why when they speak to you their answers are dripping with condescension – as if to say, how dare you question what we tell you. The Fed Chairman, liberal politicians others and his predecessors have created a false economy based upon perpetual debt and upon money and credit being created out of thin air. Today that is accompanied with zero interest rates, a combination that in time can only bring a falling dollar, inflation and a collapsing economy. It is no accident that Gold has gone from $300 and ounce to over $1700 an ounce today in 2011. Get ready for another depression – it is coming sooner rather tha later.

Misfit

The emperor has no clothes and never had any clothes and will never have any clothes but still the American People dont see it and will never see it and I guarantee and I am sorry to think this way but "he" will get re-elected again despite the fact that all of us will be naked by then as well

TexExpatriate

I disagree with the title of this essay. Obama has lost no credibility at all with the useful idiots that supported him. A few really hard-left Marxists and Leninists maybe, although it's hard to understand how you can be more Marxist or Leninist than Obama, have abandoned him, but none of his real supporters except Peggy Noonan-types and (who is that fellow?) and a phony conservative who liked the way his pants were creased.

Barack Obama takes "WORST U.S. PRESIDENT EVER" title from Jimmy Carter.
Carter was notified late yesterday of the loss. Carter expressed bitter disappointment at the loss. Carter stated that when he was president, he worked hand in hand with the Mid-East Anti American Coalition to obtain the tittle and was assured by Mid-East Anti American Coalition that the "WORST U.S. PRESIDENT EVER" title would be his for at least the next 100 years.

Obama was proud of his accomplishment and stated that THIS title he has ACTUALLY EARNED!!!!!!

It has been obvious for a very long time that Obama has a core set of beliefs that he religiously (no pun intended) sticks to. The issue here is, he doesn’t seem to recognize that his ideas have destroyed everything they have touched repeatedly throughout history. It’s ok… if we survive until next year, the difficult road to Reconstruction -I use that word on purpose- can begin.